Thursday, 15 September 2016

The Vanishing Public Realm

Some 60 are scheduled to go now, with many more expected to follow. More than 2,000 experienced counter staff will go too.

The fine, 100-year-old
crown post office I know well in Lewes always has long queues, where people
talk as they wait – but now it’s to be replaced with a counter crammed into the
back of a small branch of WH Smith.

The human face of the state is
everywhere in retreat, no longer speaking to its citizens.

HMRC has closed all
its public counters, where people often came for help with paying their taxes.

Libraries,
that great fount of civic knowledge, are closing everywhere, occasionally
replaced by well-meaning volunteers without the information people need on
everything from benefit applications to local planning consultations.

Even schools are no longer
plainly part of our public heritage, with academy chains run and branded by
business.

As for “free” schools, what are they “free” of? Of us, of our
councils, of public ownership.

Pools and leisure centres are
privatised, costing more, while half of all parks, says the Heritage Lottery
Fund, have hired out or sold off chunks of their estate to private enterprises,
making hiring pitches or other resources more expensive.

Bus services have been savagely cut back in rural areas
as public subsidy is slashed. Ticket inspectors are replaced by machines,
stations denuded of reassuring staff in uniforms.